Best Albums of '09: Ray Cummings' Pazz & Jop ballot

Man, 2009 was a weird and terrible year; weird in terms of personal listening habits, and terrible financially and otherwise. I listened to and dug more noise than ever before. At the same time, I started getting heavily into R&B -- maybe the genre was my emotional security blanket? I dunno -- and actually adored one particular album so much that it topped my Pazz & Jop list. A few standouts aside, indie-rock bored and rap disappointed. Was my Top 10 representative of anything beyond what was happening in my warped and crumbling mind space or what I found gnarly over a 12-month period? No, probably not. But here it is anyway.